So were driving on the highway, hit a pothole and all the sudden theres an extremely loud noise coming from the rear-left wheel. We pull over, assuming its a flat tire, but nothing. The car seems to drive alright, but we decide to pull off the highway and take it to a service station just to be sure. Of course, on the way there it gets increasingly worse until finally theres a loud "thud," followed by the ABS and traction control warning lights on the dashboard.

Basically, the rear-left parking brake broke loose and started getting totally chewed up by the wheel/rotor. In the end, i need to replace both parking brakes, both back rotors, both brake pads (to keep thing even), and the rear-left axle. The reason the axle needs to be replaced is because when the parking brake broke loose, it scored the ABS notches on the axle.

However, a local mechanic thinks it "may" simply be the ABS sensor got destroyed, which is why the light came on. Is this a likely scenario? Id rather pay $50 for a new sensor than $328 for a new axle..

Has anyone ever heard of this happening before?

All in all, $1000 down the drain. Ironically, it has been looked at/inspected/serviced 3 times in the past year, and they still missed it.

This is the second opinion, the first one came from the guy at Pep Boys who removed the parking brake so we could continue on our trip. The mechanic i plan on using is less than 5 minutes from my house, so its very convenient.

Wow, had no idea so much could happen from a parking brake. I know while going over a long stretch of "wash board" dirts roads I had one of the parking brakes pop off the rubber holder (not sure what it is called) and thrashed against my drive shaft for about a mile and a half last year. Luckily I had enough stuff in the truck to tie it back up and make it home. Zip ties now hold it firmly in place.

I had something very similar happen to me about 2 months ago. Driving along, hit a bump and hear a loud screeching from my right rear wheel. I pull over on a very busy highway, but don't see anything obvious. Get back in and drive it on the shoulder to the next exit and then I hear a boom, and a loud thud, like something just let go and hit the bottom of the Jeep....no more noise. Took it to the shop and they said pieces of metal literally fell on the ground when they took the rear brake apart. Parking brake self destructed. They said it looked like I drove with the parking brake on...which I never did....it just basically seized up and finally broke entirely. 500.00 later I have my parking brake again.

had similar problem with my parking brake.wife was to go on a day trip.i went to go to the car wash in the morning .put jeep in gear and BANG.i thought the axle snapped. no guts underneath so i tried again. grinding banging etc. turns out the springs that hold the shoes in the drum for the park brake just got tired from not being used and caused the shoes to flop around. $500 later. good thing it happened in the morning in my driveway and not at 110 km/h on the highway, or 2 hours away.